March
2, 2006 | Sometimes
comets give us years of advance warning before they come into good
view, and sometimes they take us by surprise. On January 2, 2006,
Grzegorz Pojmanski noticed a 12th-magnitude comet on a sky-survey
image taken the day before in Chile. The comet was in the
constellation Indus in the far southern sky. But now, Comet
Pojmanski is glowing at 5th magnitude low in the east before dawn
for observers at mid-northern latitudes. . . .

February
27, 2006 | NASA
and the European Space Agency have released one of the the largest
and most detailed photos ever taken of a spiral galaxy beyond the
Milky Way. The image shows the glorious face-on spiral M101, located
25 million light-years from Earth in Ursa Major off the handle of
the Big Dipper. The image is a mosaic of 51 Hubble Space Telescope
frames and several ground-based shots. . . .

Catch
a surprise comet in the morning sky, and look in on big Jupiter
while you're out there.

RS
Ophiuchi in Rare Outburst

This
famous recurrent nova reached magnitude 4.8 on February 13th and is
now down to 8.0. Watch it as it fades.

Deep-Sky
Companions:The Messier ObjectsDon't miss the most
popular month for viewing Messier objects! This first book
provides a fresh perspective on these perennially favorite
deep-sky targets.

Millennium
Star Atlas:Softcover EditionThe most definitive
star atlas ever produced is back! This detailed, comprehensive
three-volume set shows more than 1 million stars to nearly
11th magnitude and thousands of deep-sky objects.

UNSUBSCRIBE INSTRUCTIONS:Please use
this link to unsubscribe from this newsletter.